by Layne, Ivy
“Smartass,” I said under my breath. Griffen squeezed my fingers before releasing my hand.
“Okay, General. Let’s get your lists and conquer this bitch.”
We got back in the car and drove through the gates. The drive to Heartstone Manor was almost half a mile long, the great house cushioned by thousands of acres of land. The Sawyers hadn’t sold any of the original acreage, adding here and there as land came on the market.
Most of the land was zoned for agricultural use, and while the orchards and fields didn’t bring in the income they had a century ago, they provided a valuable tax break. More importantly, all that land gave them privacy.
We wound through the woods, beneath ancient oak trees, surrounded by dense forest, the early morning sun unable to penetrate the trees. The asphalt of the drive was pitted in places, crumbling at the edges, weeds pushing through the cracks as if the forest wanted to repossess the road, cutting off access to the house.
The groundskeepers should have taken care of that. I made a note on my pad. Hadn’t Miss Martha said Prentice fired them, too? Based on the state of the road, I wasn’t feeling good things about the condition of the house.
My stomach tightened in anticipation as we came around the final bend before we reached the house. I always felt like this when I visited here. No matter how many times I drove down this road, I never got used to the sheer grandeur of Heartstone Manor.
The house appeared out of the woods as if by magic, so massive it was hard to imagine mere trees being able to hide its bulk. Three stories of granite, it towered above us, every window dark.
Built by William Sawyer in a Jacobean style meant to soothe his bride’s homesickness, Heartstone Manor always made me feel like I’d been whisked off to the English countryside. The windows were tall, the front of the house a long expanse that jutted forward on each end, creating a courtyard. The short side sections were rounded in the front, giving the impression the house was flanked by turrets. The real turrets were out of sight on the east and west wings of the house, jutting out behind the main section, hidden by the trees.
Ivy grew up the solid gray stone, reaching the roof in some places.
Wait. I stopped and looked again. I’d always loved the touch of ivy climbing the house. The granite could have been cold and forbidding, but the wooden front door and the ivy had warmed it, made it just a little approachable.
I’d once asked Miss Martha why they didn’t let the ivy grow to cover the whole house, imagining fairies hiding in the glossy green leaves and story-book princes climbing the vines to the balconies.
Miss Martha had told me the ivy could damage the house with its roots if it was allowed to grow unchecked. She’d said they kept just enough to look pretty and cut back the rest. Someone hadn’t gotten the memo.
The ivy was taking over the granite, evoking stories of Sleepy Beauty and the wall of thorns around her castle, the prince and his sword freeing her from sleep. Heartstone didn’t need a prince, but it did need rescue—it needed an army of groundskeepers.
Griffen pulled to a stop in the courtyard, parking just in front of the steps to the front door. When I was a child, I’d rarely had to ring the bell. At the approach of visitors, the staff would alert Miss Martha, who would already be opening the door as we climbed the steps.
I waited in the passenger seat for the door to open. Nothing happened. Of course. No one was here. Maybe Sterling or Brax, but they’d hardly lower themselves to answering the door. Especially if they knew it was us.
I got out and looked up, taking in the general state of neglect creeping over the house. It wasn’t just the ivy. The bushes and flowerbeds were overgrown. The courtyard was a mess. It should have been a neat checkerboard of granite squares intersected by strips of perfectly-trimmed green grass. Instead, the grass was long and infested with weeds, almost completely obscuring the stone.
If the front of the house was this bad, I was a little afraid to see the formal gardens in the back. The woods loomed over the courtyard, cutting off the morning sun, the trees far closer to the house than I remembered.
I edged nearer to Griffen as we stood in front of the manor door, waiting to see if anyone would answer our ring. So far, nothing. The house sat silent. Abandoned. Griffen rang again. I heard nothing.
“I think the bell is broken,” I said, reaching forward to close my fingers around the heavy iron handle. I stumbled, unprepared, as the door moved, shifting inwards just enough to tell me the door wasn’t locked. I pushed harder, to no avail.
Stepping aside at Griffen’s nudge, I watched as he tried the handle like I had, then, finding it unmoving, set his shoulder against the solid wood and shoved.
The heavy wood budged a half-inch. Definitely not locked, just very stuck. Griffen stepped back and scanned the full height of the door, eyes narrowing as if the door was an opponent he intended to vanquish.
Seeing the resolve in his eyes, I took another step back, murmuring, “Don’t hurt yourself.”
Griffen backed up, then launched himself at the door, turning at the last moment to force his shoulder to take the brunt of the impact.
The door shuddered, giving another half inch. Jaw gritted, Griffen reached up to rub his shoulder. Not the one he’d used as a battering ram, the other shoulder. The one I’d noticed him rolling now and then. Odd. Eyeing the door again, sizing it up, he fisted his hands at his side and kicked hard with one long leg.
I’d have to remember to stay on Griffen’s good side. His booted foot slammed into the heavy door right beside the handle, the sheer force of his kick shoving the door clear of the frame. Somehow, Griffen managed to keep his balance, shoving his hands into his pockets as he waited for the house to give up its secrets. With a groaning creak of protest, the tall, iron-strapped door swung open, revealing the entry hall of Heartstone Manor inch by inch.
The stale odor of dust hit me first. Heartstone’s entry hall was palatial. Two stories high, big enough to fit my apartment a few times over, it was paneled in dark-stained oak from floor to ceiling, an elaborate crystal chandelier hanging in the center.
Straight ahead, a wide staircase rose one flight before it divided, the second set of stairs leading up to the right and left giving access to both the rooms on the second floor and those in the east and west wings of the house. The carpet on the stairs was gray with dust.
Everything was gray with dust.
Heartstone had always smelled of lemons and beeswax, of the flowers Miss Martha set out daily in crystal vases all over the house. Through the French doors at the far end of the entry hall, I glimpsed the formal gardens beyond. All was gray and dead.
Even in winter, the gardens had been beautiful. Not now. Nothing here was beautiful, the artful design of the house disguised by what had to be years of neglect.
Griffen summed it up. “What the fuck happened here?”
Chapter Thirteen
Hope
I could only shake my head, fending off the disorienting sense that I’d stumbled into an alternate universe. Prentice murdered. Ford in jail. Marrying Griffen. Heartstone a ghost. It was all a bad dream and I couldn’t find my way out.
“I thought Sterling and Brax were living here,” Griffen said, taking in every detail of the neglected foyer.
“So did I. Brax has a place in Asheville since he does so much business over there. Maybe that’s where he’s been staying,” I offered.
“So, Sterling’s been here alone?”
Neither of us liked that idea. Sterling was gorgeous, and reckless, and so very damaged. The idea of her on her own in this shell of a home, as abandoned as the manor itself—it didn’t bear thinking about. She could be a brat and she wasn’t the nicest person I knew, but she deserved more than this. Even a palace wasn’t much of a home when you were utterly alone.
“Maybe she’s been staying with Quinn,” I said, hoping that
was the case.
Griffen only grunted in response, venturing deeper into the shadowed interior of the house. I pressed the light switches cleverly hidden by paneling, relieved when the chandelier came to life. Half the bulbs were dead and the crystal droplets were dull with dust, but it was light. I’d take what I could get.
Wide arched doorways opened on either side of the entry hall, one leading into the gallery, the other into the green drawing room. The drawing room was decorated in white and green, with hand-painted silk wallpaper and light, airy furnishings. The original mistress of Heartstone Manor had loved her gardens and it showed in her formal receiving room.
We’d have to figure out how to clean the walls without damaging the delicate vines and flowers some long-ago artist had painted for Lady Estelle Ophelia Sawyer. Darcy—Finn, Parker, Quinn, and Brax’s mother—had loved this room. She’d called it the garden room, retreating to its bright space in the gray of winter and the heat of summer both. Her death had been a vicious wound to the family she’d dreamed of making in Heartstone. I doubted anyone had used this room since.
I was almost afraid to look in the gallery. Once, it had been home to the crème de la crème of the Sawyer art collection. Other pieces were placed throughout the house, but the best, most prized pieces had been here. I was expecting it, shouldn’t have been shocked at the sight, but I was. The walls were bare, the pedestals empty.
“Do I even want to ask what happened to the paintings? The sculptures?” Griffen should have been angry. Millions in art was missing. He sounded more resigned than anything.
“They were here the last time I was in the house,” I said. The surfaces of the pedestals were covered in a layer of dust. Whatever had happened with the sculptures, it hadn’t been recent.
“You can ask Harvey,” I murmured. “We’d better check out the rest.”
The thought of facing almost forty thousand square feet of similar neglect was daunting enough to have me backing up to the front door. Realizing what I was doing, I stopped.
“We don’t need to see the whole house right now,” I said, pulling my notebook from where I’d stashed it. “Let’s check the kitchens, dining room, and the bedrooms. We’ll need food, and somewhere to sleep. We can tackle the rest later.”
“Or we could just let it go. Let it fall to dust and forget the Sawyers were ever here.”
The bleak misery in his voice dragged me from the list on my notepad. His eyes were cold, resentful as he scanned the entryway of his family home, his shoulders hunched forward as if braced for whatever was coming at him next.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said before I could stop myself.
“What?” He jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “It’s my house, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. It belongs to your children, and their children. It belongs to history and to this town.”
“I don’t have any children.” Griffen glared at me in challenge. I wasn’t touching that one.
“Not the point,” I muttered. Drawing in a deep breath, I forged ahead. “I didn’t marry you and agree to leave my life behind so I could live in a dusty mess of a house, Griffen Sawyer. And if you think Savannah will agree to work here and leave it like this, you don’t know her very well.”
“I don’t know her at all.”
That stopped me in my tracks, just as I was gearing up to tell him what a spoiled ass he was. Last night’s rant, part two.
He didn’t know Savannah. Not really. He didn’t know any of us. He’d been gone fifteen years, had been living a life far away from Sawyers Bend, and now he’d been yanked back and had this whole disaster shoved in his lap. Did he look in the green drawing room and see his long-lost mother? The deeply-mourned Darcy? Did the empty gallery bring back his father with his lies and manipulations?
Years ago, he and Ford had run through these halls, closer than most brothers, the white knights who took care of their siblings. Until Ford had stabbed him in the back, stealing his love and his fortune, leaving him homeless and alone.
Not without a little help from you, my conscience reminded me.
Guilt washed away my righteous indignation. Where did I get off calling Griffen spoiled? Maybe he had been, way back then. Then he’d lost everything, been sent from the only home he’d known. And I had been the cause of it all. Because I couldn’t keep my stupid, jealous heart under control. Because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
Where did I get off telling him what to do, how he should feel? I’d made this mess as much as Ford or Prentice.
This house was shrouded in the past, haunted by the ghosts of those we’d lost. Griffen and I were the only ones who could drive them off. Who could make this place into something better. Into a home. And it was the last job either of us wanted.
Griffen glared at me, hands shoved in his pockets, his gorgeous face in a sulk that should have been unappealing. Except that pouty lower lip, those angry green eyes. Inwardly, I sighed. I was not equipped to handle a man like Griffen. Not when I couldn’t stop ogling his mouth.
On the other hand, I had plenty of experience wrangling ornery men. Griffen deserved compassion, but my gut told me that wasn’t what he needed. We had a lot to do and we were running out of time. I had a list to finish.
I tossed out compassion and dredged up my own ornery. “Get over yourself. We both got tossed in the deep end, and it’s too late to walk away.”
“And you’re going to make it all better, is that right, Hope? With your lists and your determination?”
His voice was silky and dangerous. I took a step back. Ornery I could handle. Not this, not the intention in his eyes, suddenly hot with something that was not anger. Something I had no idea how to handle.
“I—”
“My consolation prize. Little Hope, all mine, with no one to protect her. So fierce when it comes to saving this town, this house, my fucking family. What about me, Hope? You going to save me, too?”
I couldn’t stop backing away as he advanced, his eyes narrowing, mine shot wide with panic. Griffen won’t hurt you, I told myself. Surely, he wouldn’t.
Would he?
“Why, Hope?” he pushed. “Because you owe me? Because none of this would have happened without you?”
“Griffen, I—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a secret and I—”
“But you couldn’t help yourself, could you? I know why. I knew why all those years ago.”
My back slammed into the cold wood of the paneled wall. There was no escape. Griffen smiled, those lush, soft lips curving into a predator’s snarl. His body almost touched mine, radiating heat, tall and broad, trapping me. Leaving me at his mercy.
A whimper left my lips. Not fear. I was flushed with nerves, and need, and the utter terror of the unknown. His head dropped until those lips I’d ogled brushed my cheek.
“You did it because you wanted me. You had a crush, imagined you loved me—”
“I didn’t! I—”
“No?” His lips were so soft, brushing my skin, the shell of my ear. “Are you calling me a liar? Telling me you didn’t lay in your bed dreaming about me?”
I couldn’t get air in my lungs, had no idea how to answer even if I could have formed a word. He lifted a hand, tilted my head to the side and skimmed his lips down my neck.
“You going to say you didn’t lie under the covers and think of me with your fingers between your legs? Didn’t dream of me when you made yourself come?”
I was shaking, my head and body going in different directions. I wanted to run, I wanted to touch. I squeezed my eyes shut in humiliated, aroused memory. Of course, I’d dreamed of Griffen the first time I’d slid my fingers between my legs, terrified someone would sense what I was doing and burst in my room to stop me. Of course, it was him. It had always been him. And he knew.
His lips tasted my jaw, pressed to my own,
his tongue flicking out to touch mine before skating up the other side of my jaw to my sensitive earlobe.
“Is this a punishment or a victory, Hope? You act like you’re sorry, but from where I’m standing, you’re the only one who got everything she wanted. Maybe you did know about the will. Maybe you killed Prentice.”
He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t. How could he think this was what I wanted?
Forced into marriage with a man I’d once loved. Adored. Worshiped.
Forced to spend five years knowing he’d rather be with anyone else, that he’d only grow to hate me more with each day.
Once upon a time, I’d wanted Griffen to fall in love with me, to carry me off on his white horse like a prince in a story book. Never mind that Griffen hadn’t had a horse.
It was never going to happen then, and it was impossible now. Those were the daydreams of a lonely girl for a boy she’d never really known.
A single tear squeezed from between my tightly closed lids, the salt of it running down my cheek, staining my skin. Griffen pulled back, licking his lips from the taste, his brows pulling together.
“Hope, no. I—”
Chapter Fourteen
Hope
The front door swung open with a shrieking creak. Boot heels clattered across the hardwood floor, coming to a stop in the center of the entry. I shoved away from Griffen, swiping under my eyes before glancing up to see Savannah standing in the middle of the room, hands on her hips, surveying the formerly impressive entry hall of Heartstone Manor.
“You are not paying me enough for this,” she pronounced, her eyes narrowed on Griffen and me as I sidled away, needing distance from my unwilling husband.
I fumbled for my notebook and pen as Griffen said, “Then ask Harvey for a raise.”
Savannah gave a harrumph that reminded me of Miss Martha as she absorbed the gravelly rasp of Griffen’s voice. Had he been about to kiss me? My pounding heart wasn’t sure if that idea was terrifying or exactly what I wanted.